Discuss Stevenson's portrayal of the nature of &quot;good&quot; and &quot;evil&quot; and the dual nature of mans' personality in Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

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Introduction

Discuss Stevenson's portrayal of the nature of "good" and "evil" and the dual nature of mans' personality in Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde In "Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Mr. Hyde is portrayed as being evil. Mr. Enfield describes him to Utterson as having something wrong with his appearance, something detestable. He then continues to say how he dislikes him and doesn't know why. He believes him to be deformed but can't say where it is. Stevenson uses the words "detestable, deformed and extraordinary looking" to describe Mr. Hyde to give a sense of evil and mystery about him. Everyone who he meets hates him except they don't know why but can tell there is something evil about Mr. Hyde. Hyde's physical ugliness and deformity symbolizes his lack of morals and strange manner. Though a 19th Century audience might have seen the connection of ugliness and Hyde's evilness as more than symbolic. Also as Hyde is quite small, this may be because it represents Jekyll's evil side, which has been repressed for many years and not been able to grow. ...read more.

Middle

But he realizes that it is normal and the body is a combination of both good and evil. Throughout the book there is a belief in dual nature, though this does not emerge until the last chapter. Dual nature is a very big theme in the book and we come to this theme after witnessing all the events in the book after reading Dr. Lanyon's narrative. Jekyll believes the soul is being where an "angel" and a "fiend" fight to master the body. Jekyll reflects on the theme of dual nature by saying "All human beings .... are commingled out of good and evil. Jekyll wants to separate the identities the good side being good and the bad side being bad. He wants to do this to see if he can separate both dual nature's of man. Jekyll developed the potions to do this but Jekyll only succeeds in creating one pure evil one as in Mr. Hyde. At first Jekyll enjoys having his dark side in purest from which he admits to Utterson in his letter. "It seemed natural and human. ...read more.

Conclusion

Stevenson uses symbolism for Dr Jekyll's house and the laboratory. Dr Jekyll's house is quite a nice home described as having "a great air of wealth and comfort" and the laboratory is described as "a certain sinister block of building". The laboratory obviously symbolizes Mr. Hyde, as it is very neglected and decayed and the nice, well-kept house symbolizes Mr. Jekyll. The connection of the house and the laboratory is also a symbol. The building although connected look on two different streets and therefore it is quite hard to see that the two buildings are as one just like someone would be unable to know of the relationship of Henry Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Also as stated earlier Mr. Hyde's small build may symbolize Dr. Jekyll's dark side. Stevenson's final message is that If you deny your dark side you will end up regretting it as it will build up then one day explode in an action i.e. killing someone or doing something very bad. Also that you shouldn't give your dark side an inch otherwise it will take it a mile. Everyone has a dark side you just have to balance it correctly. ...read more.

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This was very advanced as nobody had yet begun to develop these ideas, until 1901 when Freud published a thesis on the unconscious mind. It is clear in the story that Jekyll quickly grows to hate his creation, but is unable to give it up.

People may also be able to relate to Hyde in some way, this can cause them to be afraid as they do not want to be anything like Hyde. Jekyll overlooks all this as he has come to terms with Hyde; however, he does not accept it as a part of himself.

Lanyon and he dies as a result of shock when seeing the transformation. Lanyon had held a particularly contemptuous view of Jekyll. Lanyon refers to Jekyll as his "flighty colleague." He dislikes Jekyll's experimentation and he calls them, "a series of experiments had led (like too many of Jekyll's investigation)

cast perhaps' showing that the reader should not just base their assumptions on looks and thus not to 'judge a book by its cover.' In the novella, in the chapter Henry Jekyll's Full Statement, Jekyll felt that to lose Hyde forever he had to always take this potion and be

is he in trouble? What has he done?'. In this way of showing certain duality in these characters Stevenson was trying to covey that his book was not entirely upon the duality of Jekyll but of Victorian society and humanity as a whole, saying that everyone is somehow dual and

This is very effective because it relates to Darwinism. This is because Stevenson is saying Hyde's actions are similar to one of an animal. The difference between humans and animal is that humans have self control. When Stevenson uses this he is saying that Hyde has no self control.

Stevenson used the idea of there being a beast inside a man in the character of Hyde. We saw that Hyde had animal like qualities. In the novella he was found to be 'shrinking back with a hissing intake of breath' signifying that he had snake like qualities in him.

Rumour has it that Stevenson wrote the book whilst heavily drugged; the author had a considerable liking of Cocaine, a mind-altering drug. The drug would have momentarily changed his perceptions and view on the world, and this is perhaps reflected in the book, further strengthening the divide that was beginning to shape his book.